"Ben's Lament"

Take a moment to play the video above and think again about Ben's life as we know it.
This is the somber Rachmaninov piece that Ben thoughtfully played while the "Hardy Boys" got the auto-call from the sonic fence that the mercs were on their way. TPTB picked a very good tune to use while Ben was probably mentally preparing for the "things to come," and which contingency plan of action he would pull from his bag of tricks. I played this piece as I was re-reading Ben's bio on Lostpedia, and it seemed very poignant. Not that Ben doesn't have plenty of comeuppances headed his way after the Machiavellian life that he led, and I'm sure he had many sweet cushy moments living in his Pottery Barn furnished Otherton cottage as King Of The Others, among the lonely moments of leadership. But once upon a time, he started out as just a kid...a blank slate like the rest of us, with all of life ahead of him. And then his mom died, and his knucklehead dad made a bad job decision, and decided to blame his lot in life on his kid. I can't give Ben any slack for his sociopathic behavior on many occasions (and especially his stalker attitude towards Juliet), but it still makes you think. It's another example of how TPTB have told a story of not only the need for redemption, but the need for looking into a person's past to learn why they act the way that they do.

Anyway, in lieu of having anything else pertinent to theorize about right now, I thought that this piece of music might set the mood for thinking about what to expect when we next see Mr. Linus on the prowl. And thanks to TPTB, I will not think about only "The Seven Year Itch" when I hear Rachmaninov from now on. :-)

See you in 2009 Ben! (And Mr. Emerson!)

Rachmaninov, potato chips, and champagne. :-)

"Something's Up In Comic Land"

My ARG Spidey-senses are tingling.
Some strange things seem to be going on over at the blog that posted the Mystery Tales comic in "Cabin Fever". First, they posted a final story from the comic book, but they still haven't posted the story for the cover. When posters in the comments asked for it, they gave a brief summary: "Some scientist named Jake Bronowski is on a plane that passes through a storm and he weirds out during landing because the buildings don't look the same. His best friend Dr. Polder, with whom he's been playing an ancient Egyption game he discovered, meets him but his name is now Waxman. To make a long story short, they figure out that playing the game results in a "limitless outcome of similar timelines". It's a weird game like chess game and Jake makes the "right move" and suddenly he's transported back to his timeline where Waxman is Polder again. Honestly though, the story has nothing to do with LOST. It has a strong spiritualism slant to it. It sounds more like Jumanji than anything else." When pressed further for scans of the story, they replied: "We are sorry but we've received correspondence from a solicitor suggesting it would not be in our interests to scan "The Travellers". We are sorry but it is not worth a lawsuit." As well as "We can add no more than we mentioned in post #8 above."

A game? Like, with rules? Like the rules that Ben complained got changed? An Egyptian game? Like the Egyptian glyphs all over the island? And doctors changing names? One commenter also noted that "Limitless Outcome of Similar Timelines" is an acronym for LOST. Hmmm. They also posted on the comic blog that they just found out about the Octagon commercial and site, when they were told today that the Octagon website mentions the story in the comic called "March Has 32 Days", as just about every eager LOST ARG fan knows by now.

Seriously, as FYSB asks over at TLC, that comic's very old, so when would public domain apply? And Maven found on the bottom of the site page: "blog hosted at Oceanic Webhosting Services" which connects to the old Oceanic site. So on TLC we are thinking that either the comic and/or blog are fake and whipped up for the show and game (although Sayidsgirl at TLC thinks that it's up on another auction online); TPTB did not expect anyone to find this musty old classic comic and they have asked these guys to refrain from revealing this last story which pertains to either the show or the ARG; or the comic owners are a part of TPTB and games began before we even knew it during "Cabin Fever". However you look at it for now, it's odd. But if TPTB did indeed ask them not to reveal things that they have lifted from the comic for the show, that's fair enough and copacetic by me.

Note: Jacob Bronowksi is the scientist who was in the BBC series "The Ascent of Man". LoCos at TLC have yet to find anything interesting about the name Polder.
http://www.mysterytales40.com/

"LOST Science Blog"

I've decided to keep the LOST science talk in another area for the most part, so I started: http://perditascientia.blogspot.com/ to try out keeping a separate forum for it. I'm just going to post all our favorite theories, images, and conspiracies that people have posted in the LOST blogosphere, in case anyone is interested in seeing it compiled. Some are so good that they deserve to get more recognition and notice. They might be on the mark or not, but I'll post them as I find them, in abbreviated form with links. It's just something to try through the duration of the hiatus, and mostly wishful thinking that over the summer people will start unraveling ideas about what we saw happen to the island...especially after Octagon Recruiting kicks in! :-D

"Lucky Baby"

I was wondering some things about Ji Yeon recently, and conversation on the TLC blog spurred me to finish this post. For instance:

(1) Since her conception was caused by the island's influence, will she be different physically? Do the island's EM effects at the early stages of fetal formation create a mutated species of some kind? Even though its influence has been cut short by Sun leaving before the complications set in, perhaps enough time passed for Ji Yeon's growth to be affected or mutated in some way.
(2) Is she the first one to be conceived on, and born off, the island? Maybe the uber-team's Miles, Charlotte, or Daniel were conceived on-island too -- we've already gotten hints about Charlotte -- they seem to each have special intellect or cognition. Ji Yeon might have some too.
(3) If so, will her future and the island's be entwined? According to the enhanced version of her episode, Ji Yeon means "flower of wisdom"...she might be a spiritual leader of sorts on the island when she's older.
(4) Was Sun able to get herself and the baby off the island, because the island allowed it? This could imply that she was saved because she is needed on the island in the future, or that she will help her mother control the forces against the island back in the world, via the newly revised Paik Industries' corporate mission under Sun's control.

It's all up to TPTB how they run with this part of the story, of course. But her complicated conception and time being vulnerable to the island's influence, does inspire much curiosity about her physical attributes and her future. It kind of reminds me of Paul Atreides' little sister in Dune, who was subjected to the Waters Of Life when her mother drank it while pregnant, and Alia is born a cognizant super-being. Maybe TPTB gave us a hint during the scenes at her birth, when she went from being in distress one minute to miraculously being born fine (and very quickly!). That is, if she is a "special" island-conceived baby, maybe she already has the power to control her environment (the same question could be asked about Locke's birth as well). Or, her birthing twist was just a quickie plot device to ramp up the drama and then set up a red herring in the process. Well it's a long hiatus, this is just one aspect to cogitate until next year.

"Using The FDW vs. The Vault"

Hey Ben, why use the frozen old junk when the shiny new apparatus was right there?
A lot of us are wondering why Ben had to break through the Orchid's fancy chamber vault, and use the ancient looking wheel instead, to complete his task of moving the island. Some comments of Ellen's on the TLC blog led me to a few thoughts about that: "...the fact that Ben had to blow a hole to gain entrance and then chip huge icicles off the wheel with a tire iron leads me to think that it hadn't been used since the Dharma Initiative arrived and built the Orchid Station." What she said made me think that maybe it's like the difference between the results of an atomic bomb blast, and an atomic power plant.

The FDW itself seems to be a crude but powerful apparatus that might be difficult to control for applied purposes beyond it's original intention, whatever that may be. It would make sense that the DI would have had to refine and upgrade the mechanics of the ancient machine before they could utilize it. With modern equipment to regulate the power, they could create a more manageable process, so that it could be used in various controlled and specific applications via the vault and instruments built onto it. Maybe the DI had even tried out the FDW for themselves when they found it, created an incredible result (moving in time or space), and then built equipment around it to harness the energy for practical purposes. So instead of trying to get a handle on an atomic bomb, they built a modern system onto it and learned to use it as a moderated power plant to run their futuristic equipment. Like Ben said, it was used for experiments with bunnies, so it seems as if the DI did not get very far along in their tests with wormholes, or whatever, before they got purged out.

Then when it came time for Ben to move and hide the island, the refined vault apparatus itself was probably of no use to him in doing what he had to do. He had to quickly get to the true power source, i.e. the big guns that were covered up, and turn the FDW to get the huge blast that he needed. And voila, the island "moved". Well, it's just a thought.

"Trellis Confrontation 4.13"

For some reason, this scene...

...reminded me of this scene.

I know, they are not really the same atmosphere or story momentum. But as Jack and John were having their 999th spat at the Orchid trellis, O-Ren and Bea battling at the House of Blue Leaves snow garden trellis just popped into my mind. And it did look as if the top of Jack's head was going to blow off as he watched Ben and Locke descend into the earth in cahoots together!